Chapter XII: Act I: , is in that terrible storm. In fact, the whole play, as the

title of it indicates, is full of storm.

While you are looking for storms in Shakespere see what you can
find in "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Twelfth Night," "Midsummer
Night's Dream," and "The Merchant of Venice."

Speaking of the sea still being in the Stone Age what do you know
about the kind of tools man used in the Stone Age and how he got
along?[51]

(You'll find that the story of the development of man, as dealt
with in connection with the Stone Age, is part of the strangest
story of all the strange stories of science. You will get a brief
outline of it in this story of mine, in the last chapter.)

[Footnote 51: Interesting books on this subject are: Starr's "First Steps in Human Progress" (Chautauqua Reading Course) and Clodd's "Childhood of the World." Osborn's "The Men of the Old Stone Age" is the latest and most comprehensive work on the subject.]

How much more do you know about pneumatic tools than Father Neptune
does? No doubt you've used a "pneumatic" tool of a sort yourself
more than once--a tool for making a noise. Guess what. A pop-gun!
Look up _pneumatic tools_, and you will find that the same thing
that makes the pop-gun pop helps to build skyscrapers, locomotives,
and steamships, and do a lot of other wonderful things.

In connection with the water wedges made by the sea you must
remember that curious trick ice has when it freezes (page 154);
otherwise you can't understand how it could act like a wedge.

Yes, and wedges, simple as they look, are almost as wonderful as
levers; and you know what Archimedes said he could do with a lever.

The whole subject of machinery and particularly of "automatic" or
so-called self-acting machinery[52] is fascinating. Find out about
planing mills and how they work, particularly why they stop planing
just when they are told to.

[Footnote 52: As a matter of fact, the only machinery that is really automatic is the machinery of nature, of which what we have called "the machinery of the sea" is an example.]

In connection with how the sea sometimes helps make harbors
think of as many great harbors as you can, and then look on your
geography map and see how many you have missed.

What character in "Titus Andronicus" says that about the man
standing on a rock and watching the sea come to eat him up?

Your geography has a good deal to say about continental shelves;
and with pictures. Do you remember?

Speaking of lands sinking under the sea you'll run into a world
of interesting things if you look up the story of the Lost Island
of Atlantis; about the Egyptian priest who first described it to
Solon, the Greek lawgiver, as an earthly paradise where all the
laws and everything else were just right.

And if you're of High School age you'll enjoy reading what
Plato[53] and Homer[54] say about this ideal land.

[Footnote 53: Timæus.]

[Footnote 54: The Odyssey.]

Isn't it a striking thing how the big sea that can look so fierce
takes such tender care of the little coral people? And what
extraordinary folks these coral people are! Any good article about
them will tell you worlds of interesting things. For instance, you
will find the people of whole villages living together with only
one backbone. I mean not one backbone _apiece_ but one backbone
among them _all_!

And they have the queerest way with their stomachs, a kind of
co-operative digestion, of co-operative housekeeping. (Your
mother will be particularly interested in this because it shows
the "community kitchen" idea has been thoroughly tried out and it
works! If you don't know about "community kitchens" among human
housekeepers ask mother to tell you, and then you tell _her_ what
you found out about these strange little housekeepers of the sea.)